Regulatory pressure for deeper energy and demand savings from demand-side projects is driving interest in new ways to capture all feasible opportunities. An emerging construct in this landscape is integrated demand-side management (IDSM).
The industry has not settled on a common definition of IDSM, but it can be described as the program, marketing and technology integration of DSM resources such as energy efficiency, demand response and distributed generation.
While the adoption of this framework is complicated by regulatory and utility silos, the IDSM concept has intrinsic merit and is taking hold. The expansive nature of IDSM has implications to various market actors, including utilities that are test driving the IDSM concept with their existing energy efficiency and demand response programs.
Impact evaluation within this construct is challenging because it encompasses a broad set of measures and activities with interactions that must be teased out and properly attributed.
